Slasha, Baby 2007

Freak

Recipient: absolutefiction
Author: trianne
Pairing: Elijah Wood/Dom Monaghan
Rating: PG15
Summary:Someone is trying to be cool. The fool...
Author Notes: Set in NZ, principal filming, as requested. I hope there's enough Elijah in this!
Post-Reveal Notes: Thank you, Baranduin, for the quick and helpful beta :) I hope you liked this story, Abfab, and I apologise for the lack of sex <3


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"Freak!"

He stood, rooted to the ground. Behind him, Sylvester Di Angelo was shouting, "Freaky boy! Freaky boy!" and Lisle Green was giggling. Kimberley Scottsdale was just standing there, staring at him like he was shit on her stupid pink sneaker. "Freaky boy!"

He clenched his fists and opened his eyes really wide because that stopped the tears from falling; squeezing his eyes shut, as he wanted to do so much, would have squeegeed the drops out and then Sylvester and Lisle and Kimberley would see and his nose would go red and all the scaldy things would fall on him and it would be very bad. He was rooted to the spot, feet like a bottom-of-the-sea diver's, all heavy, and if only he could turn around and have to face a big scary octopod, he'd be all right, but he knew that it was Sylvester Di Angelo and Lisle Green and Kimberley Scottsdale and they were worser than any octopod.

"Freak!"

He jerked awake to find Dom shaking him and the alarm wailing like crazy and it was stupid o'clock - again. "Freak?" he said, groggily, the sick hot heavy feeling still holding his chest and his palms sticky with the sweat of seven-year-old Elijah.

"Freak?" Dom repeated, bemused. "No, you twat, LEAK! You've got a leak in your shower, Lij. You need to report it, okay? Now get up, lazy arse."

Elijah shrugged out of his sheets and placed his feet on the bedside rug. He could hear Dom in the kitchen, fixing breakfast; it pissed him off a little because this was his place and less and less he felt like master in his own, much yearned-for home.

Next time Dom was knackered, mate or broke, mate, can't afford a taxi, I'll walk... or kip on your sofie, he'd tell him to fuck off home.

It wouldn't be so bad if Dom was actually nearly as matey with him as others supposed, but he wasn't. He was much more overtly friendly with crew members Dave and Ollivier and Jamie, and of course, Billy, than he was with Elijah. He probably rated the commissary ladies higher than he did Elijah. The guy in security with the halitosis. The miserable old fuck from the lettings agency. Saddam Hussein....

Well, fuck him. He'd come all the way across the world for this and he'd be damned if he let some big-eared squashy-nosed Brit spoil it for him. And just as he formulated this philosophy, just as his righteous ire was at its peak, he glanced into the living area and there was big-ears squashy-nose, pulling on his sweatshirt over his naked torso and Elijah was quite undone.

It was a relief to find Sean in the trailer, flicking through his little mini-script, lips pursed. Elijah gave him a quick hug on the way to dump his bag of CDs. "You'd do it different?" Elijah asked, leaning over to read the script. Sean nodded, then shook his head. "No, no, Pete's the boss, he knows what he's doing. Yep. He's the boss." Sean laid down the script and got into position to have his feet applied by Mr. Foot. Elijah smiled; he could see Sean's cogs working overtime, knew that Sean probably disagreed with Peter on some fundamental of lighting or motivation or location or angle. It was part of why he loved Sean so much; Sean's faults made him just more damned huggy.

"Freak!"

Sylvester in the playground, prodding Elijah with his sharp finger, prodding him in the chest while Kimberley and Lisle looked on. "You are such a girl! Girlie girlie girlie big eyed girlie!"

"I am NOT," Elijah retaliated, smiting Sylvester a mighty slap upside his head. "I am NOT!"

Kimberley and Lisle gasped. Sylvester stood, stunned, his cheek reddening. Then, "Mrs. Fenwick!" the boy squealed, "Mrs. Fenwick, Elijah Wood smacked me!"

"Elijah. Elijah. Elijah."

His eyes sprang open; he felt disoriented and afraid. He was standing, having his feet applied, and it was 5.45 a.m. on a Thursday morning in Wellington.

"You all right, kiddo?" asked Sean, huggable and warm and concerned. Elijah swayed on his feet, heart pounding, then nodded and grinned. "Sure!" he said, straightening up so the prosthetics wouldn't affix incorrectly. He began to feel a little better, heartened by Sean's concern, then it went out the window with one mocking glance from Dom, deep in conversation with Billy. Billy smiled, edgeless and full of morning cheer and Dom's face took on a softer consistency, conciliatory and kind. Elijah was warily consoled; it was in his nature to be forgiving and willing to believe the best in people, which was one of the reasons that Dom's recent unkindness had stung him so.

The day proceeded more or less as expected. Highlights were the edible food that for once didn't consist of cheese, and Viggo dragging them all down to the edge of the woods to stare at toadstools for seven minutes. Elijah wondered not for the first time, how someone so incredibly hot could also be so incredibly odd. He decided he liked it.

The rasp of the de-feeting tool against his ankle, warm soapy water, the can of beer in his hand, his headphones serving delicious waves of pleasure direct into his ear holes, the murmur of Sean learning new lines in the seat next to him... He was so tired. He was always tired these days. He'd never worked so hard. It was the best time of his life, he knew he was living through the best days and was building a store of memories and anecdotes to take him well into his nineties... still, he was so freaking tired.

"Freak. You look like a girl, a girlie-girl. My mom says your mom thinks you're better than the rest of us and is going to take you away to have your stupid pictures taken in Cally-for-niaaaa. That's where all the other girlie-girls live, freak." Sylvester's breath on his face, Lisle's nasty grin, still not got her front teeth and her bubblegum was sticking to the gap. Kimberley, too, though she was just standing there, frowning.

"You're leaving?" Kimberley's words cut through Sylvester's prodding and Lisle's bubble blowing. Elijah, frantically looking around for some grownup to come along and break this up - again - wondered why Kimberley's eyes had gone all foggy.

"Yeah, he's leaving and good riddance to bad, stinky garbage!" Sylvester gave one last hard poke and sauntered off, Lisle tagging along behind.

"You're leaving," Kimberley said and she went a bit saggy, like a football that's been punctured, or something.

"So what? Like you care: you don't even like me," Elijah pointed out, perplexed by the way the girl was now sobbing there in the school yard, oblivious to Sylvester's and Lisle's exhortations to get her "ass over here!".

"You don't know nothing."

"I do, too, know something. You're mean to me. You're mean and you say mean things." Elijah wanted to go find his real friends, Joe and Kyle, but somehow he couldn't find it in him to walk away and leave her, even if she was a nasty girl.

"One day, Elijah Jordan Wood, you are going to really know something about women and when that day comes I hope you remember you broke my heart." And with that, Kimberley gathered up every shred of her feminine dignity and strode away to the jungle jim.

"Freak."

"What? Stop saying that to me, you asshole," Elijah snapped, coming to.

Dom looked up at him; he was halfway through putting Elijah's right sneaker on Elijah's foot, having apparently accomplished the other foot without waking sleeping beauty. Elijah blushed; there was something so intimate about having his feet handled like this by someone other than a paid professional, Dom's hands surprisingly warm and strong.

"There," Dom said, releasing Elijah's shod foot and getting up off his knees.

"Everyone's gone?" Elijah said, stupidly, for it was obvious that in fact everyone had gone.

"You looked so tired, were sleeping so soundly, no one wanted to disturb you. Even if you were making little snuffly noises in your sleep."

He stretched, then added, "Plus, for what it's worth, I didn't say anything to you. You must have been dreaming, baby."

Elijah shook his head, trying to shake out the cobwebs before levering himself up and out of the chair. He reached for his jacket and then stopped.

"Baby?"

"What?"

"Baby. You called me baby."

Dom, halfway into his own coat, turned and gave Elijah a sceptical look. "I did not, sorry to disappoint. I said, Lazy. "

The trailer door almost caught Elijah in the face. "Dom, wait," cried Elijah, hurrying to catch up and fasten up his jacket and root around for his keys. It was getting late, there were few people about.

"Don't you want a lift?" Elijah called out, seeing that Dom had strode off past the little car and was heading for the main road.

"Nah, s'okay," Dom replied, not turning. "I'll get the bus. The bus is safer than your driving any day. How you got to be nineteen without killing anyone is a miracle."

Elijah stood by his car, scowling, watching Dom disappear out of the gates and out of sight. What a prick. What a cunt. Yep, cunt. Hoist by your own petard, Mister CuntyCunt, Elijah thought, opening the car door and sliding inside. He remembered the first time he'd heard that word. Cunt. He'd been a little shocked because that was a really bad word. But then he'd giggled and tried it out for effect and decided that, when said with an English accent, it was somehow not that offensive at all. A lot of other words had followed, all declaimed either in a Mancunian or Glaswegian accent, all of them filthy and absolutely wonderful. But that had been before Dom turned weird.

He caught up with Dom at the bus stop, pulling the car over and winding down the window. "Get in," he said, then added, "I'll keep to the speed limit and drive on the left and indicate and everything. I promise."

A moment's indecision, a shrug, then Dom was sliding nonchalantly in beside Elijah and buckling his seatbelt. Elijah set off, risking a quick glance at his passenger; he'd never noticed before, but Dom had the same color eyes as Kimberley Scottsdale. Kimberley Scottsdale, whoa man! He'd not thought about her in years and there she'd been in his dreams. He wondered what she was doing, how she'd turned out. He'd never gone back to Cedar Rapids to find out, never wanted to.

"Drop you at yours?" he asked. Dom was contemplating his fingernails in a very Dommish way; he shook his head, settled down into the passenger seat, said, "Nah. Thought I'd hang out with you, eat your food, mock your music."

Elijah found himself thinking about Kimberley and what she'd said about knowing women. Who knew a seven-year-old could be so damned smart... even if she got the gender all wrong...

"What you grinning at?"

"Nothing. Nothing at all," Elijah said, carefully moving into the fast lane. "Baby."

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